How to Set OKRs for a Team: A Step-by-Step Guide

What OKRs are and what they are for

OKRs, short for Objectives and Key Results, are a goal-setting method that pairs an ambitious direction with measurable proof of progress. The WhatMatters site describes an objective as significant, concrete, action oriented and ideally inspirational, and key results as specific, time-bound and aggressive yet realistic. Together they answer two questions: where are we going, and how will we know we arrived?

The method traces back to Andy Grove at Intel. According to WhatMatters, Grove built on Peter Drucker's Management by Objectives, and he taught the approach to John Doerr, who introduced it to Google's founders in 1999. The same source notes two differences from older objective-setting: OKRs are set quarterly rather than annually, and they are kept separate from compensation.

For a team lead, the practical value is focus. A team that must pick a few objectives per quarter has to say no to the rest, and the key results give everyone a shared scoreboard instead of competing opinions about what matters.

Before you write anything: decide the scope and the rhythm

Start by deciding which level you are writing for and how long the cycle lasts. Google's re:Work guide describes setting both annual and quarterly OKRs, with team objectives connected to at least one organizational OKR. If your company has no written objectives, ask your own manager for the two or three priorities your team is expected to serve, and anchor to those.

Quarterly cycles are the common default because three months is long enough to move a real number and short enough to correct course. Pick the start date, a mid-cycle check-in and a scoring meeting before the cycle begins, and put all three in calendars.

It also helps to decide who owns what. Each objective needs one named owner who is accountable for reporting progress, even when the work is shared across several people.

Step 1: Write two to five objectives

Draft objectives as short statements of an outcome you want, in plain language, not as a list of tasks. Google's guide says to pick just three to five objectives because more can over-extend a team. A team of six that also runs day-to-day operations often does better with two or three.

Good objectives signal an endpoint. The same guide contrasts 'keep hiring', which does not push for anything new, with an objective such as 'ship feature Y'. A useful test is to ask whether the team could tell on the last day of the quarter that the objective was achieved.

• Start with a verb that implies an end state: launch, cut, win, establish, reach.
• Name the customer, user or process that changes, not the activity the team performs.
• Keep it to one sentence that a new colleague could read and understand.
• Avoid business-as-usual wording. If the team would do it anyway, it is not an objective.
• Make sure at least one objective connects to a company or department priority.

Step 2: Attach three to five key results to each objective

A key result is a measurable outcome with a number or a date, and it should leave no grey area about whether it was met. WhatMatters recommends one objective with three to five key results, and Google's guide points to around three per objective. Wikipedia's summary of the method gives the same three to five range.

The most common error is writing activities. Google's guide gives a clear pair: 'assess customer service satisfaction' is weak because it describes an activity, while 'publish customer service satisfaction levels by March 7th' is a measurable outcome with a date. It also warns that verbs such as consult, help, analyze and participate usually describe effort rather than impact.

Where you can, include a starting value and a target. WhatMatters shows this with a municipal example in which a key result reduces budget variance from 11% to 5%. A baseline makes the target believable and the later score easy to calculate.

• Write each key result so a stranger could check it from a dashboard, a report or a file.
• Prefer a mix of leading indicators, which warn you early, and lagging ones, which confirm the result.
• Include a baseline and a target number, or a delivery date for done-or-not-done results.
• Check that the team can influence the metric directly; otherwise it is a hope, not a key result.
• Stop at five. If you need more, the objective is probably two objectives.

Step 3: Choose committed or aspirational for each result

Decide up front which results are commitments and which are stretch goals, because they are scored differently. According to Wikipedia's summary of the method, aspirational key results target a score of 0.7, while committed ones, such as delivering a product or meeting a deadline, target 1.0.

Google's guide takes a similar position on ambition: it describes success as achieving 70 percent of the objectives, with full attainment treated as extraordinary. It adds that consistently hitting every objective suggests the OKRs are not ambitious enough, and that business-as-usual goals and sandbagging, where a team can meet everything with spare capacity, are both mistakes.

Tell the team which type each result is. Without that, a missed stretch target is read as failure and people start writing safe goals to protect themselves.

Step 4: Write them with the team, then test them

OKRs that the team helped write get more effort than OKRs it received. Run a 60 to 90 minute working session. Share the company or department priorities, let people propose objectives on sticky notes or in a shared document, then merge and trim until you reach your limit.

Before locking the draft, run a short test on every line. Ask three questions: can we measure this without argument, would we be embarrassed to hit it too easily, and does any key result depend on another team that has not agreed? Fix or remove anything that fails.

Google's guide says OKRs should be public within an organization so that everyone knows the objectives and success measures. Publishing yours also exposes overlaps early, which is much cheaper than discovering them in week ten.

A template you can copy

Use one block per objective and keep the whole page to a single screen. The format below follows the sentence pattern WhatMatters suggests, 'I will (objective) as measured by (key results)', but spreads it into fields so owners and scores have a place to live.

• Objective: one sentence describing the outcome.
• Owner: one named person.
• Key result 1: metric, baseline, target, date. Type: committed or aspirational.
• Key result 2: metric, baseline, target, date. Type: committed or aspirational.
• Key result 3: metric, baseline, target, date. Type: committed or aspirational.
• Check-in notes: current value, confidence (on track, at risk, off track), next step.
• Final score: a number between 0.0 and 1.0 and one sentence on what we found out.

A shared spreadsheet or document is enough to start. If the team later wants automatic roll-ups and reminders, our OKR software category compares dedicated tools, and the project management software category covers tools where goals sit beside the work itself.

Step 5: Run check-ins during the cycle

An OKR that is only looked at on day one and day ninety is a poster, not a management tool. Google's guide describes mid-quarter and end-of-quarter check-ins and suggests revisiting OKRs a few times per quarter to recalibrate, drop objectives that are no longer reachable and add resources to borderline ones.

A light weekly rhythm works for most teams. Fifteen minutes at the start of a team meeting is enough: each owner states the current value of each key result, a confidence level and one blocker. Anything marked at risk becomes the discussion; anything on track takes ten seconds.

Pair the numbers with conversation. Your one-on-one meetings are the right place to ask an individual how their part of a key result is going and what is in the way, and the habits in how to give feedback make those conversations easier.

Step 6: Score honestly and learn from it

Score each key result from 0.0 to 1.0 at the end of the cycle, and treat the number as information rather than a verdict. Google's guide says 1.0 means the objective was fully achieved, that the expected average sits between 0.6 and 0.7, and that low grades are useful data for refining the next set.

Hold a short review where each owner explains their grade and what changed along the way. Google's guide notes that organizational OKRs are graded publicly, with each owner explaining their grade and any adjustments, which keeps scoring honest.

Then carry forward what is still important, retire what is not, and write the next set from what you found out. The first cycle is nearly always the weakest, and that is normal.

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

Most failed OKR cycles share a handful of causes. They are easy to spot once you know them, and most can be prevented in the drafting session.

• Too many objectives. Spreading the team across ten goals defeats the point of choosing.
• Activities disguised as key results. 'Hold four workshops' measures effort, not change.
• Sandbagging. Targets set so low that the team hits 100 percent every quarter teach nothing.
• Tying scores to pay or performance reviews. WhatMatters notes that OKRs are kept separate from compensation, and mixing them invites safe goals.
• Writing individual OKRs for everyone by default. Wikipedia's summary reports that most organizations no longer set them for individual contributors, because they turn into task lists and get confused with performance reviews.
• No owner or no check-in. A goal nobody reports on will drift quietly.

If your team's goals keep slipping, look at whether the underlying work is clear first. Our guide to how to delegate effectively covers handing over outcomes with enough context, and the performance management software category shows where goals and reviews can connect without being merged.

A short worked example

Imagine a customer support team of seven that wants to improve how quickly customers get answers. The objective could read: 'Customers get a helpful answer on their first contact.' This describes an outcome, fits on one line and signals an endpoint.

Key results could then be: raise the share of tickets resolved on first reply from a starting value of 52 percent to 65 percent by the end of the quarter, cut the median first response time from 6 hours to 3 hours, and publish a reviewed help center article for each of the ten most common ticket types by a set date. The first two are aspirational stretch targets; the third is committed and done-or-not-done. The numbers here are illustrative, invented for the example, and not benchmarks.

Notice what is missing: 'train agents', 'hold a weekly review' and 'explore a new tool'. Those are initiatives, the plans and activities that move key results forward. Keep them in a separate task list so the OKR page stays about results.

Frequently asked questions

How many OKRs should a team have?

Google's re:Work guide suggests three to five objectives and around three key results per objective, because more can over-extend a team. For a small team that also handles daily operations, two or three objectives is often more realistic. If you cannot name the objectives from memory, you have too many.

How long should an OKR cycle be?

Quarterly is the common default. WhatMatters notes that OKRs are set quarterly rather than annually, unlike older objective-setting methods, and Google also sets annual OKRs alongside quarterly ones. Three months is long enough to move a real metric and short enough to correct course.

Hold a mid-cycle check-in and a scoring review.

What is a good OKR score?

Google grades on a 0.0 to 1.0 scale and describes a 60 to 70 percent range as the sweet spot, with consistent 100 percent results suggesting goals that are not ambitious enough. Committed results, such as hitting a deadline, are expected to reach 1.0. Treat a low score as information for the next cycle, not a failure.

What is the difference between an objective and a key result?

An objective is the qualitative outcome you want, written to be significant and inspiring. A key result is how you measure progress toward it, with a number or date and no grey area about whether it was met. If a line starts with a verb like help, analyze or consult, it is probably an activity, not a key result.

Should every person have their own OKRs?

Not by default. Wikipedia's summary of the method says most organizations no longer set OKRs for individual contributors, because they tend to resemble task lists and get conflated with performance reviews. Team-level OKRs, plus clear ownership of each key result, usually give more focus with less admin.

Do we need OKR software to start?

No. A shared document or spreadsheet with a weekly check-in is enough for the first cycle. Dedicated software becomes useful when you have many teams, need roll-ups across levels or want automatic reminders. Compare options in our OKR software category before committing to a paid plan.

How are OKRs different from KPIs?

KPIs track the ongoing health of something, such as monthly churn, and usually stay in place for a long time. OKRs describe a change you want to make in a specific period. A KPI can serve as a baseline or a key result, but a team that only lists KPIs has no ambition on the page.

Sources and further reading

• Set goals with OKRs, Google re:Work
• OKR meaning, definition and examples, WhatMatters
• OKR, Wikipedia